CSPAN ran a tape of Wilkerson (Powells long-time chief of staff) speaking at the Middle East Institute about Iraq. He talked about the complete breakdown on US diplomacy around the world and how that has put the US in a far weaker position. When we first got to Bagdhad, Iran was begging to negotiate with us but the US refused to parlay. Now that things have gone bad for us and we are hopelessly overextended, Iran is enriching uranium and mocking us and so is N. Korea.
Wilkerson said that when the the Bushies took office, everyone chalked up the nonsense they were spewing to freshman awkwardness, like the Clinton's rough first year in DC. Only after about 18 months did it dawn on DOD and State Dept that the adminsitration was serious about a
"radical agenda" and completely
"incompetent" about carrying it out. And that Cheney and Rumsfeld represent a unique power bloc that has never existed before. Rememeber Cheney, Rummy, and Wolfie all worked for Nixon where they
undercut the Nixon CIA to exaggerate the threat of Russia (which made it such a big surprise when it collapsed when Russia was supposed to be outproducing us 10X).
Wilkerson also said that the strange power of Rummy and Cheney is made even more concentrated by their outsourcing so much of the military to contractors. This corporatization of the military will save on benefits in the future, but it also makes it sort of hazey who they report to.
He also describes Cheney as "a paranoid" ......"from Day 1".....even "before 9/11." He was also pretty certain that we have not even seen the tip of the iceberg of people who will surface to testify against Cheney (maybe he's just messing with C's paranoid streak).
As far as Iraq, Wilkerson said that we have learned from our mistakes, and probably have enough hindsight to get it right somewhere else. That is to say that we simply aren't welcome there anymore. BUT he also says that is we leave, that Turkey will probably invade Kurdistan. They feel about that the same way China wants Taiwan. This was a surprise to me.
At the end he said he did even have time to get into all the Constitutional issues that have been raised by the Unitary Executive crowd, but that the federalist papers are clearly against them. Wilkerson said that he agrees with Jefferson, that the greatest threats to America are religion and its own government.